Maven To copy jar file from local folder

Question

I am using seam to develop my application and running it on weblogic 10.1MP Using maven2 to build the application and did not find the jboss-seam-wls-compatible.jar file in any repository. In maven how I can copy this jar from my local folder to the target/WEB-INF/lib folder.

Answer 1

The right way to do this in Maven is to install it into a repository (remote or local).

However, there are circumstances that local repository is less preferable. For example, you run Maven on lots of machines and you don't want manually install it.

I just use the anti-pattern of checking JARs into version control in these rare cases. I don't even bother to install it to local repository because it adds another step and makes another copy of the JAR. I just use the JAR directly like this,

            <dependency>
                    <groupId>local</groupId>
                    <artifactId>homeless-jar</artifactId>
                    <version>1.0</version>
                    <scope>system</scope>
                    <systemPath>${basedir}/lib/homeless.jar
                    </systemPath>
            </dependency>

EDIT: The ${basedir} is defined by Maven. It's the base directory of the Maven project, where your pom.xml is. My example wasn't clear. See this one,

            <dependency>
                    <groupId>any-id</groupId>
                    <artifactId>any-name</artifactId>
                    <version>1.0</version>
                    <scope>system</scope>
                    <systemPath>${basedir}/src/main/lib/homeless.jar
                    </systemPath>
            </dependency>

Answer 2

You can install the jar to your local repository using the install plugin's install-file goal, you can then declare a dependency on the artifact as normal, and it will be packaged into your war by the war plugin automatically.

If you have a remote repository, you can use the deploy plugin's deploy-file goal to deploy the jar to that repository, then your teammates can access the jar as well.

For information, there is a Jira to make this artifact available on central.

---

Update based on your comment. I'd recommend against doing this as it is not a good practice, but if you must host the jar in your project's source structure you can put it under say src/main/lib and use the antrun plugin to copy it to WEB-INF/lib.

For example:

  <plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <phase>process-resources</phase>
        <configuration>
          <tasks>
            <copy todir="${project.build.directory}/WEB-INF/lib">
              <fileset dir="src/main/lib"/>
            </copy>
          </tasks>
        </configuration>
        <goals>
          <goal>run</goal>
        </goals>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>